Lets get real folks! This has NOTHING to do with food safety. This is only about TOTAL CONTROL by the feds in our lives. So, get on that phone ASAP and burn up the wires. Get anyone else you can to do the same thing, by sending this message far and wide.

The House and Senate WILL pass this if they are not massively threatened with loss of their position…. . they only fear your voice and your vote.

LET THEM KNOW YOU OPPOSE THESE BILLS: HR 875 and S 425

If you want to track the progress of these outrageous bills, click on the links below:

This has been a great break for me. Lots of things done, healing done, and ideas sprung.

First I shall inform you of the attempts to have another baby. We’re at it pretty good so hopefully sometime soon you’ll hear some news.

We are also at a crossroads in the direction we are heading in terms of self sufficiency. Inventoy has been built and I have started selling odd goods, mostly bellydance related and ethnic goods that I have purchased from sellers near and far. I have everything from patchwork goods made by others and myself, re-constructed clothes made by me, to spirituality items to soap.. so a run of all things funky, I suppose. I am doing the art faire, folk fest, music fest circuit around MN and neighboring states if something sounds like a good time and opportunity. ROb is going to be here taking over the market gardens and getting in full force with the farmers market run. He’ll be marketing just about daily come growing season. It’s goodness.

I have also been successful in finding other alternative minded folks who are interested in a performance tribe-bellydancers, hoopers, fire players, drummers and other musicians. It’s going to be great! I can’t wait for our first go at a performance.

As far as performing, I’ll be performing at the end of March in our first hafla-my students and my friend’s students. There shall be a couple of group choreography pieces and some solo dance. I’m gonna dance with my sword!!

Things are getting more peaceful here by and by. Everything is falling into place how we have envisioned it since we moved into our home. None of us could really ask for more.

I am becoming certified….YAY! So instead of just being a birth advocate and loving attendant for pregnant friends, I can actually call myself a certified post partum doula! I will also go after becoming a labor doula as well, but I have a full plate right now between the PPD and my AAMI studies.

So some girlfriends of mine and I are going to be getting together to write a wimmin’s zine. I am so thrilled at the idea of a zine dealing with wimmin’s issues! I have one friend who has had a baby thus far at home, so she and I have commonalities to write about! YAY! I am not sure when we will get together, but I hope soon. I have the perfect space for us all to gather for dancing, drumming, thinking, talking and writing.

I have been back at teaching bellydance now too! We have four weeks under our belt and now Connie and I are choreographing a short routine for the ladies to learn in the last 4 weeks. We will have a little hafla on the 30th. The idea behind our classes is troupe formation. We have two ladies who we are going to invite for further learning and to join the troupe. I am so excited about it! The greatest thing is that Connie and I both took our instruction from the Cassandra School! Our instruction was 25 years apart, but the same instruction nonetheless. Another great thing is that her style and mine are different, so routines will never be the same boring thing over and again. She is more traditional, as Cassandra is more traditional. I am more American Tribal Style, as my bellydance study has lead me that direction. It flows for me with regard to my personality as well as why I dance-the spirit of it. The Goddess dance if you will.

I am glad it is fall. THings are slowing down. We are getting our cold frames in, we are setting up for goats before the snow flies, and getting the house cleaned out before cold forces us inside with clutter. de-cluttering stinks, but is so worth it. After we have decluttered, I can take out my slow season crafting, like needlepoints, tea towels, aprons, dresses, etc. I love the cold months for their slow down.

I will have a video series up in a little bit about tea staining. I found a cutsie dress at Target on sale last weekend. It’s Isaac Misrahi for Target. I stained it this morning and it is hanging dry right now. I have some other alterations to do to it, namely taking it in as it is too big…waaaaay too big, as well as adding sleeves and a little trim and making a petticoat to go with it. I am very excited about this dress. I have a certain 40’s farmwife vision in my head when I see the end product in my head. Just you wait!

Off to nurse Zoe to nap and get Grace upstairs to clean her very messy playroom. Then out to tend the chickens. I have rock to throw down around the fencing and eggs to collect and kitchen scraps to feed them (They love treat time!)

Whew. It’s been a busy summer. The pinnacle was this weekend with the Cass County Fair and the ECO-Squared Fair 2007. Neither Rob or I entered anything in the fair this year, solely because we had no time. I am ready for the slow down. We did vend at the ECO-Squared part of the fair:

and gave two workshops, Thursday on Green Cleaning and Saturday on Bath and Body Products From the Pantry and Garden:

On Saturday I got to meet one of my favorite authors, Ellen Sandbeck. She is the author of “ORganic Housekeeping”, “Slugbread and Beheaded Thistles”, and “Eat More Dirt”. I felt like a nerd. A giddy giddy nerd. I asked her for her autograph on all three of her books and for a photo:

and get her books! They and the number one thing I reference for green housecleaning and for non toxic gardening and chemical free pest control. We talked quite a bit about vermiculture as we are really interested in getting our worm bin started. We are going to probably go the bunny hutch route for the summertime and then of course the indoor bins during the cool months so as not to kill our hard workers. She makes worms very exciting! Her two workshops were Organic Housekeeping, which touched on topics in her book (Mine, Green Cleaning, was about the specific concoctions you can make in your home to clean without toxins) and Vermiculture.

We had numerous discussions with people this weekend wondering why I had a baby sleeping in a sling and why I didn’t have a playpen for her to sleep in at the fair. It makes my brain itch why people don’t get it. And then they marvel at how well behaved a very tired and over stimulated baby is…oy. Do I really need to go over the benefits of wearing a baby here?

So now our busy summer comes to a close. We still have the farmer’s market, which by the way has become a terrible headache solely because of one vendor. The bad apple that spoils the bunch if you will. I will write about that on another day. I have a little bit of discussing with “the powers that be” if you will, and others involved in order to resolve this mess created in their mind alone. Don’t you completely love when people create a problem that doesn’t *REALLY* exist? It’s always a joy for me, let me tell you!

So off for now. I need to do some cleaning today and get some herbs washed and hung to dry. We went wild harvesting last night and will again on Thursday before market. We have TONS of berries! HURRAY!

Have a good day and it’s good to be blogging again. The break was thrilling too, though.

I am short a few because I left the camera in the truck after my trip to the new crafters market in Pequot Lakes (overall disappointing) so they will come later after our trip to Castoffs (OH BLISS ANDJOY COME FROM THAT PLACE!)

So here they are:

asleep in the cuddle pit.

two outfits I made for sale. They are made with vintage and/or recycled fabric and plant dyed organic hemp linen. One for a boy, one for a girl, size 12-24 mos.

Farmer’s Market opening weekend. I didn’t have a canopy up that day.

backyard camping Memorial Day Weekend.

Bro-man and the babes.

Guess who went potty!?!?

1/2 of our Pileated pair.

me. planting potatos.

1/2 of the garden. The other half is on the otherside. At the bottom of the photo is grace’s little garden. Isn’t it cute!?

The peas! Almost about to flower!! YAY!

Some of the tomatos.

A little Witch welcome to the bird folk.

The toothy before. I will have the after later when we get back and I retrieve the camera fromt he truck.